we may suppose, ever welcome at the house and ball, where refreshment, in the shape of strong drink, would be offered to them, and they thus fell into trouble through a too common instance of mistaken kindness.

In the year 1763 the mail leaving London on Tuesday night (in the winter season) was not in the hands of the people of Edinburgh until the afternoon of Sunday. This does not betoken a very rapid rate of progression; but it appears that in many cases the post-boy's speed did not rise above three or four miles an hour. The Post Office took severe measures with these messengers, through parliamentary powers granted; and even the public were called upon to keep an eye upon their behaviour, and to report any misconduct to the authorities.

Mention has already been made of the unsafety of the roads for ordinary travellers; but the roads were in no way safer for the post-boys. In 1798 a post-boy carrying certain Selby mails was robbed near that place, being threatened with his life, and the mail-pouch which he then carried was recovered under very strange circumstances in 1876.

But to come nearer home. On the early morning of the 1st of August 1802 the mail from Glasgow for Edinburgh was robbed by two men at a place near Linlithgow, when a sum of £1300 or £1400 was stolen. The robbers had previously been soldiers. They hurried into Edinburgh with their booty, got drunk, were discovered, and, when subsequently tried, were sentenced to be executed. The law was severe in those days; and the Post Office has the distinction of having obtained judgment against a robber who was the last criminal hung in chains in Scotland. According to Rogers, in his Social Life of Scotland, this was one Leal, who, in 1773, was found guilty of robbing the mail near Elgin. A curious fact came out in connection with the trial of this man Leal, showing what may be termed the momentum of evil. It happened that some time previously Leal and a companion had been to see the execution of a man for robbing the mail, and, on returning, they had to pass through a dark and narrow part of the road. At this point Leal observed to his companion that the situation was one well suited for a robbery. And it was here that he afterwards carried the suggestion then made into effect.

When such robberies took place the post-boys sometimes came off without serious mishap, but at other times they were badly injured. On Wednesday the 23d October 1816, a post-boy near Exeter was assaulted (as the report says) in "a most desperate and inhuman manner," when his skull was fractured, and he shortly afterwards died.

The post-boys were exposed to all the inclemency of the weather both by day and night. Sometimes they were overtaken by snow-storms, when they would have to struggle on for their lives. Sometimes, after riding a stage in severe frost, they would have to be lifted from their saddles benumbed with cold and unable to dismount. At other times accidents of a different kind happened to them, and, as has been shown, they sometimes lost their lives.

Mail-coaches were first put upon the road on the 8th of August 1784. The term of about sixty years, during which they were the means of conveying the principal mails throughout the country, must ever seem to us a period of romantic interest. There is something stirring even in the picture of a mail-coach bounding along at the heels of four well-bred horses; and we know by experience how exhilarating it is to be carried along the highway at a rapid rate in a well-appointed coach.